The Morning After
by Lily Jacobs
Summary: December 17, 2006 - What happened the morning after the Sheppard wedding, told in third person but from Serena's perspective. No Georgina in this story or any of the drama she brought. One-shot, no more language than most PG-13 movies these days...


**This is an idea of a scene I would have put into my larger work, **_**Between the Lines,**_** before I found out about Georgina and the 'real' reason that Serena left. So, this is a oneshot flashback to the morning after...**

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_B: "Serena left to go to boarding school without saying anything. She didn't give a word of goodbye."_

_L: "Her experience with Nate just really made her realize wow, oh my gosh, I need to change…"_

(Blake Lively and Leighton Meester on Serena)

**December 17, 2006**

This is amazing _Serena thought, sinking back into soft silk sheets. The walls around her glowed - the light was delicious. She wasn't alone, Nate's limbs entangled hers in glorious abandon as he pressed her into the bed._

"_Oh God… Serena!" he gasped in her ear._

_She was about to respond in kind when she realized something_

…wait, that already happened.

_The light suddenly became too bright, her subconscious protested, as oblivion dissipated and Serena was forced into consciousness._

She woke up to a knock on the door; though the real commotion was inside her head as hammers and nails marched and pounded through her skull.

"Gaaaah!" Serena rolled back onto her stomach, grabbing a pillow to hide her head. Yet the sudden motion set her stomach awry and she almost lost what little she had eaten the night before right there on her bed.

"Serena?" Her mother's voice sounded from the lounge of their hotel suite. "Blair's here."

If Serena had been standing up, the would have felt the floor fall out from under her as the memories of last night crashed through her head. As it was, she just barely managed to make it to the waste basket she knew from experience to always place beside her bed. She dry heaved into it.

"Tell her I'm sick" Serena groaned, after retching the empty contents of her stomach.

"Oh Serena!" Blair's familiar voice sounded through the hallway.

_Too late. _The hammers in her skull were cooled momentarily as ice ran through her veins. The room closed in around her and she found herself unable to breathe, such was the panic that set in. She was trapped.

"You look like shit." Blair observed acutely, standing at the doorway. Serena gazed at her through half-closed lids. Blair, on the other hand, looked like her normally perfect self with no hair out of place. She wore a white Channel winter slicker with black spots and B**Ø**rn boots.

"Hey," Serena croaked, pulling the comforter up over her head, trying to hide the scarlet letter she was sure was emblazoned on her forehead.

No such luck.

Blair wrestled the covers off her forehead. "Come on van der Woodsen, I won't be here to take care of you forever."

Serena groaned and hid her head back under the pillow. "I don't feel well."

Blair now was opening up the blinds. "Well you've missed all the goodbyes, Nate and his family are already gone…" and then with a bit of acid continued, "not that he bothered to tell _me _they were leaving early, or say goodbye!" They were leaving for Aspen and wouldn't be returning to the city until Christmas; his silent exit came as no surprise to Serena, given the events of last night. She finally managed to sit up in her bed.

On the other hand, Blair didn't _seem _pissed off, or at least no more so than she usually looked. She wore only the same exasperated look that Serena had seen countless times looked upon the aftermath of her wild partying.

_He didn't mention it__…_

Her minimal attention span was cut off by the overpowering sound of running water. Blair pulled Serena to her feet. "Here you go" she gently herded Serena to the shower, pausing long enough in her ministrations to let Serena slip off her slip of a nightgown before she pushed her into the shower.

The icy water blasted her into awareness. "When do you leave?" she managed to gasp before her teeth and body succumbed to the bone-chattering cold.

"Twenty minutes. I wanted to make sure I got to say goodbye"

Typical Blair, she would never leave without making an exit… or making sure she was taken care of. If not still in shock from the cold and her own betrayal, the action might have brought tears to her eyes; but Serena was too on edge for that kind of sentiment.

"Here, trust me you're going to need this," Blair handed Serena her toothbrush and toothpaste through the door, before leaving her to wash up.

Mechanically lathering the soap in her hand, Serena scrubbed and scrubbed but to no avail; she still felt tarnished as she stepped out of the shower.

Coming back into the room, she found Blair on the phone and clean clothes laid out on her bed.

"Fine, if it's not fresh squeezed just make sure it's not from concentrate." She hung up and turned towards Serena. "Well, at least you _look_ presentable." She shook her head. "God Serena, when I told you to go and get some air I didn't mean to go looking in the liquor cabinet. What got into you?"

Mid reach for her bra, the ice returned to Serena's veins. Her mind went blank - she had no idea.

"It's a bit fuzzy… I can't really remember."

Blair gave a very unlady-like snort. "It wouldn't be the first time, at least Nate was there to make sure you didn't get into too much trouble."

Serena's stomach started to flutter dangerously again. "Oh? What did he say?"

"Oh, don't worry, compared to some nights you were uncharacteristically well behaved! You only got into the champagne and then almost broke your neck dancing on the bar. I didn't get to talk to him for too long, we met in the hallway after he dropped you off at your suite."

So she didn't know. Relief flooded into her, and she nearly dropped the jeans she was trying to put on. She could make it through, live her life, it would be as though the night never happened…

"Oh, and I ordered you breakfast." Blair said nonchalantly, offering Serena a Liter-sized bottle of bottle of Evian the hotel staff had left by the bedsides in hopes their guests would opening it before reading the note that said it wasn't complementary.

As Serena glanced at Blair to thank her, her voice caught in her throat and before it came out again she realized she couldn't do it.

It had happened. Regardless of whatever she had been thinking, however much champagne she had consumed, it didn't matter. She had nailed her best friend's boyfriend on a barstool. They hadn't even slept together! How classy can you get?

A second later Serena took the bottle. "Thanks."

Blair's face, normally holding a pout that was anal bordering on bitchy, was such a combination of caring tinged with worry that Serena could swear she looked downright maternal. She loved Blair so much; more than the father who she barely saw, more than the mother who barely had time to worry about her own problems much less her daughters… and at least as much as Eric if not more. They were like family.

"Serena, I'm serious!" Blair continued on her pin-point precise analysis. "I'm worried about you. I turn my back for one minute and you come home looking and feeling like shit."

She couldn't face another day, lying to Blair like that. Well, she had actually yet to say a lie but even that not lying but lying by omission. She knew her acting skills weren't good enough to live that life. Two weeks of space weren't enough, when they came back to school her façade would inevitably crack, and Nate…

_"Oh God… Serena!" Nate gasped in her ear._

Nate was in love with her.

_Fuck._

"Woah!" Blair barely made it to her before Serena's weakened knees gave out from under her. "Take it easy there; I don't want to have to give you another shower."

He had said as much last night, but Serena had known something was going on since before the bathtub incident over Thanksgiving; while the three of them had always been practically inseparable since kindergarten, Nate had always stayed particularly by Blair's side even before they started dating. Serena had attributed his closeness of late as concern for her partying habits, which Blair had accurately described as having gotten increasingly harder over this past semester. Yet over Thanksgiving, even in her inebriated state or perhaps because of it, she had managed to make the connection between the timing his advances and the fact that she was single for the first time since eighth grade. Shocking still was the fact that his declaration of love in the middle of their passionate indiscretion _didn't _shock her, he never would have cheated on Blair with another girl for anything less. Beyond that though, the thing that really scared her, was the fact it had made feel... giddy. Serena was nauseated by the thought this morning, but none the less there was a small ember of a glow burning at the bottom of her stomach.

She once again turned towards Blair, continuing in her speech oblivious to Serena's diverted attention.

"So I just want to make sure you're going to be okay while I'm gone these next three weeks."

"Yeah, I'll be okay…" Serena kept looking at her. "You're amazing, you know that?"

Blair shrugged, and then smiled "Of course." No false modesty there.

She didn't deserve what was going to happen. Nate hated secrets, and Serena knew him well; he would break up with her Blair as soon as he had a chance to talk to Serena. Serena knew how he felt… and yet she had let it happen.

She opened her mouth to … what? Explain? Apologize? Was there anything really she could say that would make it remotely better? She couldn't explain this, and Blair wasn't exactly the forgiving type. She knew, deep down, that she had responded to Nate's advances not because she wanted a momentary drunken hookup, but because she genuinely felt the same way; nothing else would allow her to betray her other best friend. So that was it: she loved them both. But yet she had let, by one single indiscretion, created an incident which would inevitably burn down a friendship burned down over ten years to build. How on earth could she hope to make it right?

Just as despair threatened to overwhelm her a half-thought, momentary but brilliant in its significance flashed across her minds eye. It was something she could do alone, no one else needed to know. It would pain her down deep into her soul, but perhaps it might hurt less in the end; her life as she knew it was already a lie. She would take responsibility for her indiscretions alone… perhaps the first truly responsible thing she had done in her life.

Serena smiled. Blair would be proud… not that she could ever find out.

"What is it?" Blair asked.

Serena was saved from responding by her mother. Lily breezed in, followed by the room service Blair had ordered.

"Ah Blair, I see you've breathed some life into Serena." Lily said, obviously pleased to see her daughter awake and dressed.

"Of course, just took a little prodding..." Blair trailed off, looking at her watch. "Oh God, is that the time? I'm going to be late." She got up and gave Serena a quick hug. "Be good," she whispered.

"I'll try." Serena fought to choke back a sob. Blair, her mind already set on Barcelona, didn't hear it.

All she had left to do was pack.

"Well, I'll be glad to get out of the city for a while." Lily said, getting out her suitcase. "I have to say it was a lovely wedding for December… though whoever recommended that dress to Anne Shepherd should be shot."

"Mhm," Serena made her noncommittal reply lost in thought.

"So Serena…" Lily started folding the lavender pantsuit she had worn to the wedding into her suitcase. "Have anything special in mind that you want for Christmas?"

"Yeah." She took a deep breath. "Remember that boarding school you had me look at?"

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**Your thoughts, as always, are appreciated.**


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